


Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in

by stillusesapencil



Series: Javid's indie playlist [10]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Songfic, assorted newsies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26385808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillusesapencil/pseuds/stillusesapencil
Summary: Spot opens the door, and Race shuffles his feet, sniffs up the cold-induced snot threatening to run, and says, “I didn’t know where else to go.”Spot opens the door wider.(no need to read the rest of the series, this is a standalone)
Relationships: Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Series: Javid's indie playlist [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616590
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in

**Author's Note:**

> Sprace sequel! 
> 
> tbh, this has just confirmed I'm really more of a ralbert shipper. but ykw, this turned out alright anyway.
> 
> I wrote it because [I and Love and You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0eSpAgqrWo) by the Avett Brothers grabbed me by the chin and screamed "SPRACE!" 
> 
> Also if you've been keeping up with this series there may be some inconsistencies _I'm sorry_

Race’s hands shake as he packs his bag. He’d left his school supplies in his locker, taking home only his empty backpack. All he needs should fit in there--he doesn’t have much, after all. Every cent he earns at his two jobs goes directly to his school. 

Hudson Academy is not cheap, and while he’s smart, his scholarship is still not full-ride. He only has himself to blame for that, anyway. 

He puts the last item on top of his uniform sweaters in his duffel--a framed photo of him and his dad when he’d won a math competition at school in the third grade. The photo is grainy, date stamped in the bottom right corner. It only makes him feel wistful, now. 

He zips the bag. It’s time to go. 

He slips through the apartment and out the door, no sign of his parents. They could be working, they could be drinking, they could be sleeping off a high. It doesn’t matter, and it’s not like they care where he’s going anyway. Besides, three months from now he’ll be eighteen, and they’ll have no say over him anymore at all.

_ ~Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in~ _

He watches the toes of his high-top converse as he maneuvers down to the subway. The cuffs of his skinny jeans are frayed and white, another testament to all the things he cannot have. He slides his card to get in. 

Declined. Declined. Declined.

Behind him, someone shouts something loud and rude.

Ducking his head, he turns around back where he came. 

Guess he’s walking to Brooklyn.

_ ~Are you aware the shape I’m in?~ _

The thing about Spot Conlon is that he’s simply everything Race has ever wanted to be and doesn’t even realize it. He’s smart, he’s strong, he’s out, his parents love him,  _ visibly love him _ , and he’s wealthy. Or at least comfortable enough to afford Hudson Academy and the expensive clothes, nice car, and new leather-bound notebooks from Barnes and Nobles, rather than the dollar-store spiral-bound Race buys. 

Race used to hate him.

Funny how times change. 

He shivers in the chilly wind. The balls and heels of his feet ache from walking so far, and so do the joints of his hips. His back protests the load of his backpack and duffel, and the tips of his ears ache in the cold. 

And if he doesn’t eat soon, he’s probably going to pass out. 

Willing himself to keep pushing onward, keep going, he plods one foot in front of the other all through Manhattan, over the Brooklyn bridge, onward. By the time he shows up at Spot’s house, the sun has gone down, and the wind is well and truly blowing.

When Spot opens the door, Race shuffles his feet, sniffs up the cold-induced snot threatening to run, and says, “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Spot opens the door wider. 

Without asking, without really speaking, he leads Race upstairs to a guest bedroom with hardwood floors covered by a large oriental rug. There’s sea blue curtains on the window and a painting of a sailboat on the wall. The bed, a double, seems like the largest Race has ever seen, and the quilt looks so soft--

Spot coughs in the doorway. “You eaten?”

Race shakes his head. 

_ ~My hands they shake, my head it spins~ _

“Yes! Take that, sucker!” Satisfied with his win, Race flops back on the cushy leather couch, dropping the controller in his lap, as Spot groans and shakes his head. 

“Next time,” he promises. 

Onscreen--or rather, on the wall, as Spot has a literal movie room with a projector--Spot reloads the Mario Kart race.

“So where are your parents?” Race asks, offhand, like it’s not really important. 

Spot shrugs. “Italy, maybe. Maybe Spain by now. They’ll be back next week.”

Race nods, filing that away. He’ll have to find somewhere else by then.

“How long are you staying?”

“A few days, if that’s okay.”

Spot nods carefully. “Look, Racer--”

Race twitches at the use of the nickname, the soft tone of Spot’s voice. 

“Stay as long as you need.” He says it gruffly, looking away and shoving a handful of cheetos in his mouth and chewing with a tense jaw. 

Race lingers in his look--noting the muscles in his cheek and his dark eyelashes and the birthmark on his cheekbone that gave him his nickname. “Thanks,” he says, looking back at the screen. “Want a rematch?”

_ ~Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in~ _

If he didn’t need the scholarship, Race would have never tried out for the football team, never made wide receiver, never caught so many of Spot’s passes. They never would have gone months with simmering tension in the locker room, simmering with Spot’s economic privilege and Race’s hot temper, never would have finally had a brawl after practice. 

Never would have been caught by Oscar and Morris Delancey, two defensive backs, who used the sight of two gay kids rolling on the grass to turn it into--well, something else. When the coaches pull the four of them apart moments later, Race has both Spot’s and Morris’ blood on his knuckles, and Spot has black eyes from Race and Oscar. All four of them get suspended, Race takes a financial penalty (he can only assume the others do too, but it’s not as big a deal for them), and Spot shakes his hand. 

“It was an honor fighting with you, Racer,” he says, grinning through swelling eyes and a bloody lip. 

“The honor is all mine,” Race replies, and smears his bloody knuckles on his sore cheek. 

They’ve been friends ever since.

And yeah, Race is a nerd, Spot’s a jock, but they’re both rounded, mature people, capable of overcoming their differences. Spot is two years older than Race, but only a year ahead in school. He’s a freshman at NYU, choosing to commute. He and Race hadn’t spoken much since he left, and yet. Race showed up on his front step and Spot opened the door. Race is tall, and Spot is short, and Race is poor, and Spot is rich, yet here they are.

Race is living in his house like a moocher, even though his parents simply welcome him in. More often, it feels like an endless sleepover with his favorite weirdo, and the blue room slowly becomes his own, his tattered paperbacks on the nightstand and his letterman on the bedpost. His picture frame comes out of the duffle bag, and holds a picture of him and Spot, now. 

What this is, he’ll never now.

Something less than lovers, something more than friends.

_ ~Three words that became hard to say~ _

Isn’t it funny, Race muses, how the last three months have felt more vivid and real than the entire eighteen years of his life? 

Spot’s parents have completely adopted him, easy as that. Not legally, of course, but they don’t even blink at the boy suddenly staying in their house. They travel most of the time anyway, and Spot and Race are old enough to care for themselves. And they leave a fund for Spot to use on take out and delivery and other such luxuries Race has never experienced. When they learned his birthday was coming, they insisted on taking him to dinner. 

It’s nice. 

It isn’t until after, when Race and Spot are tiptoeing around the kitchen while his parents sleep, quietly icing the boxed cake they made, that Race feels like it’s really his birthday. It’s 11:45, not that late by his standards, but they putter around in the dark, muffling giggles and whispering  _ “brooooo” _ as they manage to not mess up a cake. Spot lights the candles with a lighter, and Race looks at him through the glow of the candles, and smiles.

They eat the whole cake between them and start a Keanu Reeves marathon that they will clearly never finish because the guy’s been in like, fifty movies. And suddenly it’s nearly four in the morning and they don’t have class tomorrow because it’s saturday and Race is almost falling off the couch laughing at something Spot said and as he wipes a tear from his eye it just spills out. “I love you.”

Spot pauses just a half second. “I know.”

Race grins at him. “You fucking nerd.”

“Nerd, me? Psshh.” He shoves at Race’s shoulder, sliding him closer to the couch edge. “You’re the aeronautical engineer.” He leans down and presses a small kiss to Race’s smile. “And I love you, you nerd.”

_ ~I and Love and You~ _

They elope Race’s sophomore year. He is twenty, Spot is twenty-one, and they drive to New Jersey to do it. After a year of being dorm mates, and then a year of sharing a tiny ratty apartment, they just decide to sign the papers, and screw everyone else. 

They both wear suits, and Spot buys boutonnieres for both of them. Truthfully, Race would have gotten married in his jeans and flannel, but Spot had wanted something a little nicer. Race gets it. For him, he’d wear a banana costume if it’s what made him happy. 

Spot’s parents had wanted a ceremony, but they’d wanted it after school. Nevertheless, they are happy and his mother gets teary and tells Race she’s glad she’s finally able to call him “son.” Race’s parents don’t react as well, but he doesn’t really keep in touch with them anyway, so who cares. 

Their friends throw them a party the next week--bringing what small gifts they can afford. There is alcohol and music and dancing, and laughter long into the night. Jack and Davey, Finch, Elmer, Albert, Charlie, Les, Sarah, and Katherine fill their apartment to celebrate their union and their love, and it fills Race’s heart. He and Spot have a good little family. 

Thank God for the day he’d run away, hoping Brooklyn would take him in. Thank God for the day he’d finally said the hardest words to say.

_ I and Love and You. _

_ I and Love and You. _

**Author's Note:**

> Newsbians piece to come...


End file.
